


deletion

by macwritesthings



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Established Relationship, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 15:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18527824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macwritesthings/pseuds/macwritesthings
Summary: He constantly posts the photos, then deletes them. Lingers over them while they're up, despairs over them after 24 hours.





	deletion

**Author's Note:**

> IDK y'all this is just angsty and short and wouldn't leave my brain, so here it is. Mentions of panic attacks in here, but nothing too in-depth.

He knows posting the photos is risky, but he never leaves them up for long. They’re never anything _too_ suspicious, nothing that would cause anyone to read something more from them.

The two of them sitting in the grass, Armie flipping off the camera. Armie and Elizabeth and a joke about photoshopping himself in later. Mirror selfies in the _Ellen_ shirt, memories of a hazy morning after and Armie’s mouth against the back of his neck.

No one has to know that each photo is a moment capturing a day when something momentous happened. They look like snapshots of a busy life, an actor self-conscious about leaving his own photos up, so they get deleted. No one would ever know he puts them up and then takes them down when he panics, curls into himself and thumbs through them, fingers hovering over the face of the man he loves, before he deletes it, from Instagram, from his phone, only leaving it on his computer, seared into his brain.

Never thinks about the feeling of Armie’s hand on his lower back in that grass as his fingers wrapped around a cigar as effortlessly as they wrapped around Timmy’s cock, the way his fingers traced the bumps of Timmy’s spine as he leaned into Armie’s space on an airplane to take a photo, the way Armie shot him a grin as they posed for Elizabeth, the lazy smile Armie shot him with Liz covered his mouth when he accidentally swore in front of Harper, the way his stomach jumped when Armie brushed past him to get to the aisle when they were at the first screening. 

The way he posts the photos is innocent enough, hardly ever captioned, just quick crops and no filters, thrown up as hastily as the peace signs he obscures his face with in the photos Armie tries to take. Quick moments in his life that he knows will last much longer than the lifetime of the photo on the app, knows that it’s being uploaded to tumblr and twitter as he does it, knows people will screenshot it and coo over how close they are, how good their friendship is.

He knows people will start rumors about them, knows how often costars, especially those who are close, get linked together, knows these are mostly true, but that they’ll never reach the core of what the two of them truly are, how close they truly are. How sometimes he has no idea where he ends and Armie begins, how they’re extensions of each other’s thoughts and feelings, hearts beating in time that scares him as much as it exhilarates him. 

The morning after _Ellen_. The lazy, sun-drenched kisses at a ranch. Armie licking into his mouth in a car outside of Crema as moonlight streamed in the window. Music pounding through his ears and Armie’s arm draped around his shoulders. Photo after photo after photo, living proof that these things happened, joy he wants to scream and share with the world, joy he’s scared of sharing and scared wasn’t real, joy he can’t look at, so he has to delete it, keep it safe somewhere looking at it over and over again won’t tarnish it, won’t jinx it. 

He knows it’s stupid, that it’s anxiety talking, but he knows he’s not good enough, not nearly enough to keep Armie satisfied for long, just a twiggy kid who’s just starting out, in awe of where he’s come and what he’s done, and Armie is so self-confident and satisfied and sure of himself, surely he’ll realize Timmy has no place in his world.

So he puts the photos up to celebrate the moments, takes them down when panic strikes, and closes his eyes to remember them, breathes through the doubts and clutches his phone, waiting for the familiar chime of a text to help pull him out of his own brain, the FaceTime call to help him fall asleep.

He’ll never be enough, he thinks, but Armie seems to think he’s worth it, so maybe-- _maybe_ \--he is.


End file.
